Hosur Town
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Hosur Town
Headquarters of the subdivision and taluk of the same name in Salem District, Madras, situated in 12° 44' N. and 77° 50' 1'.. The nearest railway station is Malur on the Bangalore branch of the Madras Railway, 20^- miles by a g(;od road. It is also easily accessible from Bangalore, 24 miles distant. Population (1901), inentioned frequently in the history of the wars with Tipu Sultan, and sup])()sed to have been built for Tipu by an English engineer named Hamilton. He and two other [)risoners were barbarously beheaded on the a[)proach of Lord Cornwallis's army in 1791. The divisional oflicer's bungalow, locally called the Castle, was built at great cost l)y a former Collector, Mr. Brett (1859-62), when Hosur was the head-(|uarters of the District. It is in the style of an EngUsh mediaeval castle, with turrets, battlements, a moat, (!^:c. It was purchased by Government in 1875 fo ^^- 10,000.
Four miles south of the town, at Mattagiri, is the Hosur Remount Depot, from which the Ninth Division of the army in India is supplied with cavalry and artillery horses. This dates from 1828, and is in charge of a British oiTficer assisted by a subaltern of the Army Veterinary department. The greater number of the horses are Australians bought from the importers at Madras. They are acclimatized and broken to their work at the depot. The place has a wonderfully English appear- ance, the grassy paddocks being surrounded with post-and-rail fences and entered by gates of fLimiliar pattern, and much of the work on the farm is done by horses instead of bullocks.
